Glass
by NorthernTrash-x
Summary: Haruhi/Kyon. So she’ll scowl or she’ll smile, and she’ll make him laugh or burn up inside, and even at the end of it all he still can’t see inside of her, but as long as she kisses him like that, and keeps on believing, then it is okay.


Haruhi x Kyon

'3am' by Matchbox Twenty

**Glass**

_She says it's all going to end,  
__And it might as well be my fault_

If you'd have asked me, a year ago, where I thought I would be around about now, I rush to assure you that I didn't think I would end up becoming the glorified personal secretary of a girl who might just be able to destroy the world. Oh, and that said destruction of the world is all down to, apparently, me.

Yeah, you heard it right. Extra, extra, read all about it. If the world ends (and it's come close to doing so a few times) I'd like you all to know that everyone who knows Haruhi, specifically her wacko club, blame it all on me. Oh, the club? We're a mixed group. We've got an alien, an esper and a very cute time-traveller, not to mention our leading god and myself, her personal lackey who is completely normal, I rush to assure you. And trust me, when three people who you are half-convinced might not actually be insane turn on you and say that those giant things destroying downtown are your fault in the entirety, it gets hard not to believe them.

But the fact is, it's not my fault. It's not my fault at all. And as much as she likes to blame me for things that go wrong (not the cataclysmically, end-of-the-world bad ones, by the way: I think I forgot to mention, she does that in her subconscious), I think she knows she doesn't have much reason to blame me.

I'm just a normal teenager with grades a shade below average, and I did not choose to get dragged into this sorry mess.

She knows she's being unreasonable, but she's Haruhi, so like hell she's ever going to admit it.

She's stubborn like that.

_And she only sleeps when it's raining  
And she screams, and her voice is straining  
_

And sometimes she stops, and slows down, in the heat mainly, as if when she isn't running around at a mile a minute on autopilot her body has to go on manual, and it takes all her mind to keep her running. Even then she's still Haruhi, and it's when it rains she really changes. She gets so bored unless there is something to distract her.

Quiet Haruhi is somewhat relaxing, I must admit.

She's normally so wild, so loud, so intense. She'll bite onto something and won't let it go until she decides it is no longer anything.

It gets very annoying when you're the one who is being made to do a hundred-and-one tasks in the name of the almighty-leader-of-the-club-you-didn't-want-to-be-in-in-the-first-place.

She hates to be bored, so we never stick at a single task. We're constantly tendering to her needs, but the others are happy, because they think they're saving the world. I'm much more sceptical. I honestly think they're just paranoid sometimes. Or maybe just idiots. Yes, it's more likely they are just idiots. Unfortunately, that makes me one too, because a lot of the time I believe too.

But I wonder what would happed if she were simply to stop. If she just didn't do anything eccentric or out of this world. Don't let her know, but I think I'd get a little bored myself, although I would be able to have a normal life, which would be a bonus. Getting known as a member of the 'freak-brigade' doesn't do much for my street credibility. Not that she cares.

No, she'll just go on with her ideas, embarrassing me and bemusing everyone else, because it's better than her creating closed space and destroying things, after all. Those big blue things can do some serious damage when she's angry enough, believe you me.

She's frustrated like that.

_She says "baby,  
__It's three am: I must be lonely_"

And then there was the time when she started to make an entire new world. Or maybe she did, we just didn't know. It gets a bit confusing when I think about it, so I try not to. I have enough to worry about when it comes to the nutcase.

But anyway. I've gone off on a tangent, and as Haruhi would tell me, (that means yell loudly, because it's me and she can) I'm wasting everyone's time. In that grey world where nothing was alive apart from the two of us she'd turned to me, and the excitement in her eyes was enough to almost- almost, mind you- get me excited too. And when I was informed that I was the one person she wanted with her in her new world, I couldn't help but feel a little pleased, flattered even.

Because, despite her dictator stance and her impoliteness, she's still a girl, a pretty girl who I actually get along with quite well.

Perhaps too well.

And when I'd kissed her under a blue glare she felt normal, not like a god I was supposed to worship, not like a potential for auto-evolution or something that made a time-quake of astronomical proportions. No, she just felt like a girl, a pretty girl who I liked more than I cared to admit, who I was kissing, and who was kissing me back.

But when we came back she was back to normal, back to the teasing, yelling fool who tries my patience, and I still roll my eyes and argue back, because that's what we do, and if anything had changed between us after that- and there is no way of proving she even remembers, because even if she did she would just think it were a dream- then she showed no sign of it.

She's frustrating like that.

_She's got a little bit of something-  
__Dear God, it's better than nothing_

Now, this is no exaggeration. I've never met anyone quite like Haruhi. I mean, I've met strange people before- we've got the self-proclaimed alien, the esper, the time-traveller, and that hyperactive friend of the time traveller with all the green hair. Then there is the other alien posing as a student who tried to kill me, but that issue is dead and buried, because the club's alien dispatched of her. Oh, and that other girl who I think might be another alien, but I'm not quite sure: Yuki's not exactly giving on information.

See what I mean?

No, Haruhi just sees the world a different way. She sees every colour as a new one no one has discovered yet, every insect as a possible alien life form. Life is a circus to Haruhi, a great tent of bright colour and loud animals, her as the ring artist, us as her players. What would I be? Knowing how I get the worst jobs, I'd end up the lion tamer, I'm sure.

But in Haruhi's tent of wonders and marvels, there are no crowds. Aliens jump through hoops, time-travellers do sword tricks and espers are acrobats, but there are no crowds. No mass of people to make her feel insignificant. No people to make her forget she's important. Just her and her world and her players.

That's all she needs, as long as there are constant new tricks and acts, she doesn't care if the lion tamer puts down the whip and chair and watch the show. The magic is there, and as long as it is she wants it to have its importance, not be put down as cheap tricks at her command.

She's the ringmaster, but she wouldn't want the praise, either.

She's different like that.

_And in her colour portrait world,  
__She believes that she's got it all_

She may not like praise that much, but Haruhi's head is bigger than most. She knows she's good at anything she puts her mind to, music and sport and art and math and political wheedling. She gets bored so easily of things, and part of that is her own vanity- none of them quite fit her image. That is, none of them are completely off the wall. She won't settle for something that doesn't meet her standards, and that includes the excitement of school activities.

She doesn't care about flaunting her body for publicity either. Secretly, she enjoys that people watch her hand out flyers, because it adds to the wide knowledge that she's different to the rest of us. She manipulates people with her looks, conning them to believe her cute-face-cute-person façade.

She knows she's clever, too, and she uses that to her advantage, because she knows she can. She blackmails and cheats people into giving her things, breezes through lessons and thinks up new ideas for the clubs activities. None of which, I hasten to add, am I ever consulted on.

Her imagination sky-rockets. She can recreate whole scenarios in her head, invent stories and past histories, find mysteries where there are none, and break ones that aren't real. She thinks that she will find someone exciting one day, and one day soon, and who am I to tell her she sees three nearly every day- four, if you include the mirror.

But most of all she has an unfounded belief in herself. She knows she's right, and she'll change the world to make it so. She has so much self-confidence that it oozes out of her, and she never sees anything that she does as being a bad idea.

She knows that whatever I say, whatever I argue, that in the end I think I'm probably going to bend to her will, simply because she will push me down in the end.

She knows she's got the rest of us beaten.

She's egocentric like that.

_She swears the moon don't hang  
__Quite as high as it used to_

She yells at me when I do things wrong, claiming that my failures have shamed myself and the club yet again. Apparently I am a consistent loss, and she doesn't have clue what to do with me, and if I'm not careful then she'll throw me out. Damn. Because I want to be in this club so much anyway? Honestly, I don't really mind if I fail at her silly little games, because I succeed where no one else does.

I'm the person she cares for the most.

At least, that's what people claim, but I'm not sure, sometimes, that I can see it. Sometimes I can, but others I can't, and it can get a little perplexing. If she does care, why does she act the way she does, announcing my failures and winding me up? And yet there are times when her mockery is light-hearted, teasing playfully, and although I still raise an eyebrow and sigh, it makes a little bit more sense.

I mean, as much sense as Haruhi makes, anyway.

Which isn't really a lot.

How can you stare into the sky and see a thousand possibilities littered amongst the clouds? How can you stargaze and see different worlds? How can you look at the ground and discover the trails lead by millions of people, and imagine the adventures they have had? How can she stare into the distance and perceive people a hundred miles away who are doing inconceivable things?

How can she do it?

How can she make little things into events of astronomical importance?

Whatever she is, she can do something that no one else has ever managed to do, as far as I'm aware. She's stared into the face of insignificance and been afraid, but then she turned and laughed. And as much as she hates to think that she's not important in the grand scheme of things, she is.

Even to me.

So she'll carry on with her incongruity and perplexing ways, with her theories that make little to no sense and her unfounded belief in the unbelievable because that is what she does, and that is what makes her Haruhi. And she can ridicule me and tell me how annoying I am, and then get jealous if I get too close to another girl, because contradictions are something she's good at too, and in the end, she's never going to make much sense.

She's confusing like that.

_She believes that life  
__Isn't made up of all that you're used to  
_

It's quite endearing, actually. She does think that there are things to be discovered. I mean, so do I, but I've had enough proof to satisfy any critic for life. She's seen none of it. She's just unwavering in her belief.

Except, it's less like a belief, and more like a dream, a wish, a hope.

Most people give up. That's the length of it. Most people believe for as long as they can before they just think, without a doubt, that there is nothing left to hope for, and then they go back to reality, because reality is the constant we can all believe in, even if at times when I'm with the club it seems a bit unreal. But no, Haruhi doesn't give up. As far as she's concerned, it's just a matter of time, and who cares if no one else will wait for her? She knows the truth, and if no one else does, then that's their fault, not hers.

When she gets going, nothing can stop her, and if people get dragged along with her enthusiasm then it's a bonus, but she'd have done it anyway without them. The only thing is, is she knows that they're not getting away with not joining in. Not when it's Haruhi, at any rate. I cannot count the times she's burst into the club room telling us she's gone and done something utterly stupid or just plain strange without informing us that we were going to get involved in it too. Not that you'd tell her that it is a daft idea, of course.

She's as clear as glass at times, when you can see right through her silly schemes to the truth that she didn't just want, she needed something to do. But she's like old glass, like the glass they don't make any more, because when you look through it everything looks strange and the image wavers, almost like you're looking at something through water. Yeah, she's like that, and not just because it's pretty rare. She's like that because when you look at her, the lines of judgement and reality start to move, and nothing you think about her will stay still for long.

Yes, Haruhi's like glass.

She's pretty unusual like that.

_And the clock on the wall has been  
__Stuck at three for days, and days  
_

And sometimes I wonder if she can see back through the glass too, because she stares at the world like it isn't making sense to her anymore, like everything is out of sync with her. And that is evident in her mind- everyone else is out of step with her, there is no way she could ever be a step behind everyone else.

And she'll stare at something with such passion and strength that I wonder if it will melt away under her laser, and I can see that she's seeing something else, something more than what everyone else can. I wonder if she is seeing something beautiful, something wonderful, or a nightmare?

I wonder if it makes a difference to her which one she sees in her dreams.

Does she see brilliance or horror, or does it not matter, because either way it is something different, something that no one else can see? Do her nightmares make her feel better because she knows that at least somewhere she is doing something so out of this world fantastic it makes her want to scream inside?

I wonder what she sees when she looks in the mirror.

Does she see an ordinary girl or the extraordinary creature that I see? Does she look in her eyes and see something normal, or the brightness that lights a room that I can almost feel coming? Can she understand that she's amazing, or is she just waiting for the proof of it?

I wonder what she sees when she looks at me.

She probably doesn't see what I feel. She'll see the things that bug me, and then totally miss the things that don't. She will see when I think another girl is cute, and not notice when I think she is.

She's paranoid like that.

_She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway  
But outside it's stopped raining_

Sometimes we will sit there awkwardly, me staring off wishing I were somewhere more normal, her wishing she were somewhere more interesting. Both of us wishing we were somewhere were the other wasn't, because we both want a life that the other doesn't. Normality versus abnormality.

And then other times when she will smile up at me, even though she's missed the real thing that I was trying to say and only got the thing that I started out with, none of the bad times are important, and it doesn't matter that she's missed the point because she's smiling at me in that special way, the way that looks like it is supposed to be telling me something, but I haven't got it.

I guess we're as bad as each other in that respect.

But then sometimes she is so damn unreasonable that it makes me boil inside, makes me want to storm off and yell and hit things. There are times when we shout and scream and argue like there are no more tomorrows, and she'll throw things at the door that I slam behind me.

And then the next day we'll be back to where we started, sitting in awkward silence as we wait for the other club members to arrive, Nagato not included because she just sits there, reading. She's no big addition to conversation, or anything.

So she'll scowl, or she'll smile, and she'll make me laugh, or burn up inside, and even at the end of it all, I still can't see inside of her.

I still can't work out what she's thinking.

She's unfathomable like that.

_She says "baby,  
__It's three am: I must be lonely"_

She won't ask for help, you know. Oh, she'll get help, but she won't ask. She'll demand, she'll receive, but there is no way she'd ever reduce herself to asking for it Even if she needs it, she won't even command politely.

I don't really mind though.

Because when she says 'Hey, do this,' I know that what she really means is 'Hey, Kyon? Could you help me out?', but there is no way that she'd be nice about having to rely on someone. And when she gets angry about me and another girl, and yells at me, she really just wants me to pay attention to her. Knowing her, she probably thinks there has to be a romance within our club, seeing as how we needed a moe character and everything.

And her eyes will burn into me so deeply sometimes that I think she can see right through me, see through my scepticism and my lies and the beliefs on which I place my actions, and she sees the real me. She sees the one who really finds the whole thing funny, not exasperating, who secretly likes his little sisters attention and enjoys having fun, even if it isn't normal. She sees that person and knows that if she keeps on going long enough, he'll emerge enough to stop complaining as much.

He'll just roll his eyes, and shake his head, and… actually, come to think of it, he wont do much more than I do now, but she'll know alright.

She'll know because she knows me, and she knows that if she smiles in a certain way, I'll buckle, and if she looks at me while she's biting her finger, I wont be able to argue back at all.

And she just looks like such a normal, flirtatious girl when she does that, that I can't think of anyone else.

When she does that, you forget the crazy, loud, egotistical side of her, and just remember the fact that she is, at heart, a girl, and that as obsessed with ditching the mundane as she is, she still feels the same as us about some things, and when it comes to certain people, she thinks about them more than she will ever let on.

She's actually pretty adorable like that.

_When she says baby,  
Well I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes  
Says the rain's going to wash away_

There are just so many different levels to her.

There is the child. The one who stamps her feet when she can't get her own way and pouts and screams and acts so petulant that I want to yell right back, until, that is, we all give in and let her do what the hell she wants.

There is the leader. The one who chivvies us all into place and can act like a grown up, organising and convincing people, and thinking in a way far too adult for her years. Like an office boss, she sits at her desk, with her legs crossed, scowling at us like she has paid us to be there.

There is the irrationalism. Nothing anyone else can make sense if it is not what she thinks exists. She is there, paranoid, thinking, making plans that don't make sense, not listening to any reason.

There is the dream. The things that she could be, the things that she wants to be, the things that she will be. There are the places she wants to see, the things that she wants to see with us… with me. Then, of course, there is the dream of us, the dream that materialises when she wraps her arms around me and pulls herself close to me for no reason. And I'll hold her tightly too, kissing her and making her eyes slide shut in a way that no mortal has ever made a god do, and she'll kiss back before she realises what she is doing, that she has let me in a little bit more. Then she'll pull away and walk off, blushing a little, and I wont mind because she'.

There is the believer. The girl who stares into the stars and prays for the enhanced, hopes for a different future. The girl who believes that there is something different.

Something better.

She's… well, she's just like that.

_I believe this_

The girl who believes in me.

In us.


End file.
